The Smarterest
by Lodylodylody
Summary: An excerpt from Cody's memoirs in the future. Learn the details of the accident that changed everything for Cody, Bailey and London.
1. Chapter 1

**From the Memoirs of Cody Martin…**

It all started on the ship.

Looking back on the whole incident now, it really seems implausible….but then, a lot of things my brother and I went through back when we were kids seem implausible, especially when London was involved.

I remember how it began so clearly. It was a perfectly ordinary day. A number of us were in the science lab working on our chemistry assignments. As usual, my lab partner was my shipboard sweetheart Bailey. I think we had just celebrated the two month anniversary of our first date at that point. Those were good times…but I digress.

While Bailey and I were working on our project, my twin brother Zack was making a royal mess of things with his lab partner, my roommate, Woody. Really not the best pair to be working together on a science assignment. I don't know what they did, Bailey and I had been too wrapped up with each other to notice them until things got out of control.

But I remember when we heard their shouting and turned to look. I can still picture the panic on Zack's face very clearly, as he ran back and forth with a beaker full of smoking, bubbling chemicals in his hand. Whatever those two had mixed together, the resulting liquid was obviously unstable, and it didn't take a scientific genius to see that it looked like it was going to explode.

We all started yelling for Zack to get rid of the dangerous liquid, but he wasn't sure how to dispose of it. Neither was I. Finally, I grabbed the beaker from his hand and in desperation I hurled it out an open porthole. Unfortunately, this porthole didn't open out to the sea, it opened to the exterior deck. And as the container sailed through air and out of the room…I'll never forget what I heard.

London's voice calling out, "What the--?"

And then the explosion.

* * *

I spent the next six hours camped at London's bedside in the ship's infirmary. My brother and other friends had spent a lot of time there as well, but they had to leave eventually. I couldn't. Guilt wouldn't allow me to. It was my fault that London was there and I wasn't going to leave her side until she woke up. Bailey stayed with me all that time and Mr. Moseby tried to as well, although the duties of his job finally forced him to leave. We promised him that we'd come get him the moment London was awake.

It wasn't as if the doctors had said London was in dire shape. There'd been a complete examination and we'd been assured that she was unhurt. X-rays, blood tests…everything indicated that she was perfectly fine. She just wasn't conscious. The theory was that it was some sort of shock and that she'd wake up soon.

Of course, I was aware that the longer it took for her to wake up, the more likely it was that she was suffering from more than mere shock.

So when London finally opened her eyes, gazed over at me and softly said my name…the relief I felt was indescribable. She seemed a little groggy, but otherwise okay. After talking to her a few moments, Bailey dutifully went off to fetch Mr. Moseby, leaving me alone with London.

"I'm so sorry," I told her, as I explained what had happened. She listened so calmly, not upset in the least. In fact the look on her face was…contemplative. That's not a look I was used to seeing from her.

"Honestly Cody," she said when I finished my apology. "There's no need for your self-recrimination. The events that unfolded were simply due to chance. Perfectly understandable."

I'm sure my jaw dropped when she said that. London stared at my shocked expression with that contemplative look for a bit, and then she blinked and smiled brightly, looking more like her old self.

"Wow," she said. "I sounded all smarterer. Yay me!" Then she clapped her hands excitedly.

A moment later, Bailey returned with Mr. Moseby and our teacher, Miss Tutweiller as well. London was cheerful and eager to get out of the infirmary. I dismissed the odd exchange we'd had as unimportant. Perhaps I'd just imagined the whole thing. I was tired and stressed out, after all.

* * *

Everything seemed normal after that…at first. London acted the same as she always had before. But in hindsight, I can pinpoint where the changes started. One day when Miss Tutweiller handed back our graded homework assignments she complimented London for her improved efforts. Similar compliments went on for two weeks, but then were replaced with odd glances from our teacher. Finally Miss Tutweiller asked London to stay and talk to her after class. As it happened, I had accidentally left one of my textbooks in class that day. When I went back to retrieve it I overheard their conversation.

"London," the teacher said. "I've been trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but there's no way I can believe you wrote this assignment."

"And why would that be?" she replied calmly.

"It's far too advanced for you to have written." Tutweiller's tone was more than a little exasperated. "It's far too advanced for me to have written. There are parts of it I can't even understand."

"I'd be happy to explain it to you," she said, and then launched into a discussion of quantum physics that I could barely follow…and I had been doing a lot of reading up on the subject at that time. I think I let out a gasp of surprise as I listened, because London stopped speaking as she and Miss Tutweiller noticed that I was in the room. I apologized for interrupting and explained that I'd returned for my textbook, then I excused myself quickly.

* * *

I tired talking to London about what was going on later that evening, but she just smiled and told me not to worry about it.

"I'm perfectly fine," she assured me. "I'm simply exercising my intellectual potential to a far greater extent than I have in the past."

Before I could press the matter further, Bailey joined us. She and I were supposed to have dinner together that evening. London smiled warmly at the two of us and then said, in the friendliest tone imaginable:

"You two are such a lovely couple. It's too bad you won't be able to stay together in the long term."

Before either Bailey or I could get over our shock and respond, London had turned and left.

* * *

Bailey confronted London about what she had said later that evening. She told me all about it when she unexpectedly showed up at my door a little after midnight. The look on her face was…troubled, to put it mildly. We couldn't talk in my room as Woody was asleep and we didn't want to disturb him. So I escorted Bailey outside.

"What did she say?" I asked.

"That you and I didn't have a future together," Bailey answered. "She had so many reasons why we wouldn't work. And she was so…sure about it. So logical."

I was angry when I heard this. London had been one of my best friends for years, and she and Bailey had become good friends as well in their time as roommates. Why would she say these things? "How can she be so mean?" I asked.

"That's just it," Bailey answered in an upset tone. "She seemed anything but mean. The way she talked. The way she explained it all. It was like she was trying to be helpful."

"Helpful?"

Bailey nodded. "She told me that it would be best if you and I recognized that our relationship has a time limit and to enjoy our time together now instead of wondering about the future. She said…."

As Bailey proceeded to explain all that London had told her, I got a sick feeling in my stomach…because I found myself agreeing with London's arguments. What I felt for Bailey was real and wonderful, but we were both still teenagers. At the end of the school year I would be going back to Boston and she would be off to Kettlecorn. Yes, we could keep in touch, but the odds were that both of us would be going to different schools next year, and then on to different colleges. Long distance relationships were difficult enough for people who've established themselves in their careers, but for us…two kids who didn't know what we be doing with our lives yet…it would be impossible.

I didn't like facing that fact, but I knew it was the truth. And looking at Bailey, I knew she had reached the same conclusion.

"So we have a time limit," I said. "I guess there's nothing to do but make the most of it."

Bailey bit her lip nervously. "London had a suggestion about that too."

"She did?"

"She said that anytime I wanted, she'd leave our room so that I…could be alone with you."

My eyes went wide at that. "She didn't mean…" I began before trailing off. We both knew what London was suggesting.

As much I was concerned about London's strange behavior, Bailey and I didn't discuss our friend anymore that night. We were too busy discussing what we wanted to do about London's suggestion.

And what did we decide?

Well, London's arguments did make so much sense.

* * *

As it turned out the decision Bailey and I made had both positive and negative side effects.

On the positive side, the two of us were young and in love…and it turned out we were very sexually compatible. Despite being two virgins who didn't know what we were doing, our first time was fantastic. And we only got better with practice.

We ended up practicing a lot.

But on the negative side, we became so preoccupied with our new 'hobby' that we failed to notice how much London was changing. She was still friendly and pleasant, but a lot quieter and more serious than she ever was before. We became used to this, just as we became used to her getting straight A's in all her classes.

Even when her grade point average surpassed both Bailey's and my own, we still didn't question matters. We just accepted the idea that after years of not applying herself, London had finally started to take her education seriously. We also accepted her change in style. No longer did she fuss over her clothing or makeup. Not that she let her appearance get sloppy…she was as lovely as ever. It was just that she took to wearing practical outfits rather than her designer ensembles. And she always pulled her hair back into a simple ponytail rather than spend any time at hair stylist. My brother called this London's 'hot librarian' look.

And none of us questioned it.

To this day, I wonder if I had questioned it…if I hadn't been so focused on my fun with Bailey…

Maybe I could have saved London from some of the pain that followed.

* * *

**To be continued…**

_**author's note: **__This is an idea that came to me in the middle of the night...inspired by a literary classic. (Can anyone guess which one?) It should be concluded in the next chapter. Please review. _


	2. Chapter 2

As our time on the ship drew to a close Bailey and I were too concerned with saying our goodbyes to give much thought to anything else. Our last night together was intense. We were determined to give each other a memorable farewell…and we were successful.

Still, there were many tears that final morning when we all disembarked. Bailey and Woody shared a taxi to the airport while Zack and I rode back to the Tipton with London and Mr. Moseby. I remember that London was the only one of us that didn't shed a tear. She simply smiled at us all in that serene, knowing way that we'd all become accustomed to.

* * *

Even though I missed Bailey, life back in Boston was good. It was nice to be reunited with my Mom and all my friends back at the hotel. They welcomed us back happily, but all were surprised by the change in London. Everyone agreed that it was a positive development though.

Of course, none of us realized then just how intelligent she had become. We saw the kindness in that smile of hers and didn't look past it.

Perhaps we were afraid to.

Maddie was the one who started to have doubts. At first she was overjoyed that her good friend had improved her intellect. She did admit feeling jealous when it became apparent that London was smarter than she was, but on the whole she was happy with her friend's 'improvement'.

But before too long, Maddie became uncomfortable with the heiress. As different as their personalities had been in the past, as often as they had bickered or fought, the two had always been able to relate to one another as friends. Now however, Maddie felt she couldn't connect with London.

I became aware of all this when Maddie began questioning me about when London had started to change. The more we discussed it the more I began think about how different our friend had become.

Maddie and I started researching to see if there had ever been cases like London's before. Our results were far from conclusive. There had been numerous cases where individuals had undergone drastic personality changes after recovering from head trauma…but London had shown no signs of that kind of injury. The explosion back on the ship had knocked her out, but she hadn't suffered a concussion. She hadn't even had a bump on her head.

Maddie and I were left to speculate that there was something in the chemical mixture itself that had affected London...but that seemed more in the realm of science fiction. Still, something had changed her.

I decided to observe London to see if I could learn anything more. At first I hoped to do so without her noticing, but that was a futile effort. Whenever I tried to slip pertinent questions into 'friendly conversation' she'd simply look at me with bemusement. I started to understand why Maddie felt uncomfortable around the heiress. She was so intelligent…I couldn't help but feel inferior around her.

Yet, the smiles she gave me were genuine. The affection in her eyes was real. I couldn't forget that London was my friend. With that in mind, I tried talking to her directly. I told her I was curious, and quite frankly baffled, by how much she had changed.

"It's only natural for you to feel that way," she told me. "There's no denying that I've undergone a significant transformation. Even I'm curious as to where it will lead."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"My intelligence is still increasing," she explained. "And it's doing so at a rate that I can't accurately measure anymore. I'd already surpassed all conventional IQ tests before we'd left the ship."

Stunned as I was by this news, I still managed to ask another question. "Who's been testing you?"

"I've been testing myself of course," she answered. "I can't afford to have anyone else know the extent of my cerebral development. I have no desire to become a guinea pig for some ambitious scientist."

I could understand her concern about that. But looking back, maybe if she had been examined by a scientist at that point there still would have been time to prevent what ultimately happened.

* * *

With London's spectacular intelligence she had no problem convincing me to keep her condition a secret from everyone else. She told me it was a relief to be able to share her secrets with someone else. And she had secrets aplenty.

She showed me the private area of her penthouse that had been converted into a makeshift laboratory. That was where she studied her own increasing mental power, but many other things as well. She filled a multitude of notebooks with bold new theories on biology, psychology, sociology…pretty much every sort of '-ology' one could think of. Reading through her notes taught me more that summer than a year at a top-ranked university could have.

I fell into the role of London's assistant without any complaint. Her writings weren't meant to be merely an intellectual exercise. She told me that she wanted to improve the human condition. To make the world a better place. And indeed, some of the ideas she came up with could have had a profound effect on mankind if she had shared them…but she never did.

For as brilliant as her theories were, she was never satisfied with them. She was driven to come up with ideas that could solve every problem on the planet. The smarter she got, the more ambitious her goals became. She was searching for nothing less than absolute perfection.

Of course, even with her intellect, such a task was impossible. But she wouldn't accept that. That was when I saw the London that none of her other friends did anymore. All they ever saw was the quiet, calm young woman with the knowing smile. I saw her when she didn't smile. I saw the frustration, and the anger. I was the one that she would lean against wearily when she had exhausted herself from working too long. I realized that was my purpose. London dealt with the rest of the world using logic and reason, but I was the one she could still show her emotional side to.

So I shouldn't have been surprised when she made me her lover.

And make no mistake, my choice of words here is deliberate. She made me her lover. It was far from a traditional romantic seduction. One evening when working in the lab, she declared she needed a break. She asked me to come to her side…and then she kissed me. I was so stunned that I didn't try to pull away, not until I felt her hands unbuttoning my pants.

Shocked by her boldness, I stopped her and tried to talk to her. But, just like in all other matters, there was no point in arguing with London. She explained to me why there was no reason for us not to add a sexual component to our relationship. It was somewhat surreal to hear her run down the benefits of such an arrangement in such a matter-of-fact fashion.

But in the end, it all boiled down to her looking me in the eyes and telling me that she wanted me. I wanted her too. I think I always had.

We made love then and there in the lab. It was London's first time, though she certainly didn't show any nervousness. In fact, she was so wildly uninhibited that…well, I don't think I can properly describe how that evening went. Suffice it to say that it proved to be the first of many amazing sexual adventures with London.

* * *

I didn't realize there was a problem until the middle of that August. It began with a simple slip of the tongue. We were in the lab and London was in one of her more frustrated moods. I began massaging her shoulders as she kept going over a complex equation on her computer screen. The numbers weren't adding up. Though the whole of the equation was too advanced for me to understand, I did notice one small part of it that seemed to have a basic math error. When I pointed it out to London, she made the correction and finally got the answer she'd been expecting.

"Thank you," she told me with a sigh. "I can't believe I missed that mistake. I'm smarterer than that."

I laughed then. Thinking London had chosen to mispronounce the word as a joke. But she gave me an odd look and asked me what I found so amusing.

When I told her, there was a brief flash of emotion in her eyes. An emotion I hadn't recalled seeing from her in a long time.

Fear.

But the look passed quickly and she laughed, saying that she must have been more tired than she realized. We stopped working and had a quiet dinner together followed by some passionate love making.

The next morning, she told me that she was going to start a new project that she would need to work on in isolation. From that point on, I wasn't allowed in the lab anymore.

* * *

I became more and more troubled over the next few weeks. London spent long hours in the lab so I wasn't seeing her very much. And when I did see her there was always something a little off about her. Her smiles seemed forced. Her eyes were haunted.

Our sex life took on a new tone. London had always been an ardent lover, but now there was a tinge of desperation surrounding her. When we would finish she would lie next to me and I would feel her trembling. Even when she was sound asleep, she'd tremble. I tried to ask her about it over and over, but she'd insist that nothing was wrong or that she was simply working too hard. She repeatedly promised that she would cut back on her time in the lab.

She didn't.

Finally I could take no more. I tried to get her to come out of the lab one day. When she refused I forced the door open.

The sight that greeted me was disturbing to say the least. The place was a disaster. The floor was cluttered with crumbled pieces of paper and discarded notebooks filled with sloppily scribbled equations. More disturbing were the equations written on the walls and table tops, and in the center of it all stood London with a crazed look in her eyes.

She screamed at me to get out. She picked up small items within her reach and started throwing them at me, but I grabbed her and held her until she stopped struggling. She went limp in my arms and just began sobbing. I whispered comforting words to her until she stopped.

Then she told me the truth.

Her intelligence was no longer increasing. In fact, she was regressing at an alarming rate. She'd been spending all her time trying to stop this from happening, but it seemed there was nothing that could be done.

"But I can't go back to the way I was," she cried. "I can't live like that. I can't be that pathetic excuse for a human being again!"

I argued with her, telling her that she was never pathetic. Just because she wouldn't have her advanced intelligence anymore, that didn't mean her life was over. She'd been happy before.

"But that was before!" she said in a panic-filled tone. "I didn't understand then. I do now. Two weeks ago I knew how to design a nuclear reactor. Today I can't. I don't know how anymore. But…I remember that I could. I know that I knew!"

As I listened, I felt a chill go through me. I understood the torment she was going through. They say that ignorance I bliss, and there is some truth to that. London would never be the same girl she used to be. Imagine a child that is born blind. The child will grow up and spend his life in darkness, never knowing light or color. Then imagine a man who has perfect sight for years and then loses it. He'll know what he's lost. He'll mourn that loss in a way that someone born blind never would.

London knew what she was losing. She was always going to remember what she'd had…and she'd always know that she'd never have it again.

But that didn't mean she couldn't find happiness. I had to believe that, because I was determined to make her believe it as well.

It was hard, those next short weeks as her intellect faded. I spent as much time as possible with London, and I arranged it so that she was never alone. Maddie, Zack, my mother and Mr. Moseby were the only ones I revealed the whole truth too. They were all a great help. I don't think London could have gotten through it without them.

The important thing is that she did get through it. And I thank God everyday for that fact.

* * *

Today, London's intelligence is slightly higher than it was before the accident that changed her. She reads a lot, mostly trashy romances but few other things as well. She's read _The Hobbit_ countless times, but that's because it's always been a favorite of our three children. They love having Mommy read to them.

Our fifteenth wedding anniversary is coming up soon. We're going to fly out to California to see Zack and Maddie. They've been dying to show us their new beach house for awhile now. The four of us don't get together as often as we'd like, but it's always fun when we do.

There are still times when I'll wake up in the middle of the night and see that London's not in our bed. That's when I'll go downstairs and find her in my office, staring at the bookshelves. Sometimes she'll reach her hand towards something by Shakespeare or Milton or Machiavelli but she'll always stop short, as if afraid to touch them. I hate to see that lost look in her eyes when I find her there, but when she turns to me and her expression brightens…she looks so beautiful.

I know there's always going to be a part of her that hurts, knowing what she's lost. But she hasn't let that stop her from living a fulfilling life. She's never given in to hopelessness or bitterness.

She's smarterer than that.

* * *

**The End. **

_**author's note: **__There it is. The idea for this came from **Flowers for Algernon **by Daniel Keyes, though now that I look over the finished product, I'm pretty happy that I was able to make this story go in it's own direction. The only thing that's the same is the concept of someone becoming vastly more intelligent and then returning to their previous state. Also, I got to return to my roots in doing a full-blown Lody story (while having some Cody/Bailey as well...and even some Zaddie.) Thanks for reading. Please review._


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